Memory Is a Series of Hexagonal Tubes

via - hexagonal tubes are 15% of the brain’s protein. Previously, we knew that long term potentiation of synapses features a hexagonal enzyme, CaMKII, which carries 6 bits of information (presence or absence of phosphorus at each of its 6 corners).

The new result is that computer models have shown that the same CaMKII that’s involved in potentiating synapses, can also fit inside the hexagonal “microtubules” and write (or read; probably both - I’m not clear) the 6 phosphorylation bits in a slice of the microtubule. Probably microtubules, which are long, can hold very many 6-bit bytes.

It’s known that long term memories are lost if recalled and not stored. I could imagine the transfer of molecules from microtubules having this characteristic (if you don’t put them back when you’re done, they’re gone).

CaMKII and microtubules exist in non-brain and non-human tissue as well.